Events

As the holiday season fast approaches, one Manhattan store's window display may attract more attention than usual. On November 6th and 7th the Interdependence Project (IDP), a NYC meditation group, will host a 24 hour marathon meditation sit in the store front windows of a downtown interior design store, ABC Carpet & Home. The initiative, headed by IDP founder Ethan Nichtern, aims to bring awareness to the value of meditation in Western Culture and raise funds for IDP. The meditation event, under the slogan "Change Your Mind to Change the World," will be open to the public:
Nichtern will be joined by one hundred IDP members who will meditate in rotation throughout the 24 hours. Introductory meditation classes will also be taught free of charge throughout Saturday by venerable teachers, including Roshi [Pat Enkyo] O’Hara and Dr.
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I listen to discussions of Christianity from time to time on NPR and it seems that it's simply required in such conversations to take the "magic" out of the Judeo-Christian narratives. But when the religion in question is Buddhism, it's apparently fine to suspend one's rationalist mind.
–Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online
Jonah Goldberg seems to think that liberals give the Dalai Lama—and Buddhism—a pass when it comes to claims of the miraculous. Pico Iyer, for instance, discusses the Dalai Lama's most recent incarnation as Goldberg "would expect a believing Buddhist to tell it"—that is, without skepticism.
We can't blame Goldberg for thinking that Pico Iyer is a Buddhist (he isn't), since Iyer has written plenty about all things Buddhist, including articles in Tricycle, and has been quite close to the Dalai Lama. But are "liberals" generally easier on Buddhism than, say, Christianity, as Goldberg contends?
Not always.
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Matthew Weiner writes the following for the Reuters blog Faithworld:
Everyone has a September 11th story, especially those living in New York, and just about every religious community has a way of commemorating it. Most religious leaders include the topic in their weekly sermons. Others hold prayer services on the day itself. Do different religions do so differently?
Some Buddhists do. On Friday, September 11th, Rev. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, a Japanese Buddhist priest, hosts his annual Lantern Lighting Ceremony at Pier 40 on the Hudson River. He has done so every year on the day of anniversary. Hundreds of people attend—many of them Buddhists, but mostly they are just New Yorkers who have made this the way that they pass the evening of 9/11 as the sun sets.
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It goes without saying that our lives are filled with stress—many translators use "stress" as the English translation of dukkha, as in the first Noble Truth.
For the benefit of the stressed-out among us—and who isn't—Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman are offering a weekend retreat on stress at Menla Mountain Center near Woodstock, New York. The dates are September 25th-27th, 2009. From the flyer:
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China and Tibet have a very long history together (take a look here) but it hasn't always been so inharmonious. For instance, the artistic synergy between the two peoples has been impressive, and a new exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art proves it:
As each tradition interacted with the other, Chinese painters took from their Tibetan counterparts a fearlessness in use of color and composition, pushing at the boundaries of their more reserved styles," Scheier-Dolberg said.
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Russian Buddhists received political acknowledgment yesterday when President Dmitry Medvedev announced his support for a revival of Buddhism during a visit to Buryatia, Siberia. Addressing Russian Buddhists at the Ivolga Datsan Monastery, Medvedev recognized the historical significance of Buddhism in Russia:
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